#IWAFORK

[samsonet]

It was a' for our rightful king

Leon always gives Chairman Rose what he wants.

Title from the Robert Burns poem of the same name.

~

Leon hasn’t been so excited for a match in forever.

He had endorsed the kid because they were Hop’s friend, that much was true, but the way they powered through the gym challenge was entirely because of their talent. This kid might actually be able to defeat him. The thought makes his heart race.

For now, though, their main priority is dinner.

Or it would be, if Oleana hadn’t shown up and told him the Chairman wanted to see him.

It’ll be quick, she said.

Fifteen minutes at most, she said.

It takes fifteen minutes just to get through the monorail.

Rose is waiting in the lift. “Thank you for coming, Leon.”

“Anything for the Chairman of the League.” Leon puts on his best fake smile, the one that drives the audience wild. “But I don’t have much time. I’ve gotta meet up with my brother soon…”

Rose dismisses it with a wave of his hand. “You’ll have plenty of time. Now, I have something of utmost importance to discuss with you. Do you remember what we discussed a short while ago, about the Darkest Day?”

Internally, Leon groans. He hoped this would be one of the chairman’s whims, whole-heartedly acted on one day and forgotten the next. But it seems that Rose wants to take this further.

“I remember. But I don’t understand why this is such a big deal. If the crisis won’t come around for a thousand years, what’s the point of doing something so dramatic now? Especially with my championship match tomorrow. After all, don’t we have plenty of time?”

If Rose picks up on the mocking echo, he doesn’t show it. “Unfortunately, we do not. I am moving up the timeline; it will be happening tomorrow. Now, as you know…”

Rose goes back to the start of his plan, something about Wishing Stars and an ancient Pokemon. Leon tunes it out. He’s heard it a hundred times before, and it never makes any more sense. The chairman has a wild idea and is sure he knows What Must Be Done, because he’s the chairman and he’s… rich?

But that could just be Leon’s biases in play. His own background is very humble compared to the chairman’s.

When Leon was ten -- when he was a brand new trainer and the world seemed so friendly and bright -- he was introduced to Rose at a celebration. Rose seemed so friendly and strong and trustworthy. He asked Leon a lot of questions, and Leon answered all of them. He told about his strategies. He told about his journey. He told about his baby brother, only a few years old then. He had never thought about what kind of information was supposed to stay personal.

When Leon was twelve, Rose gave him a present for Hop. The Championship kept everyone busy, was the excuse, and shouldn’t your baby brother be rewarded for being so patient about not seeing you for so long?

And that was fine, but then —

“So this is what I need from you,” Rose says. “Your Dynamax band, first. And second, for you to help contain the Pokémon we are going to summon.”

“I — I can help you contain the Pokémon, of course. But my Dynamax band? Chairman, the championship match is tomorrow. I’m going to need it then.”

“We need it now,” Rose says.

“To solve something in a thousand years!”

Leon immediately regrets raising his voice. Rose gives him the look, that expression of condescending sadness, the you couldn’t possibly understand look.

“Don’t you remember my calculations? The future is coming more quickly than you think. We…”

He launches into yet another ramble that Leon chooses to ignore.

(How have they been here for hours? It is so not a champion time.)

When Leon was fourteen, there was this gym challenger. She was a cheerful girl from Motostoke, and she had a Pangoro for a partner. For a time, it seemed like they could actually make it to the finals and face him. And that was fine, but then…

But then Rose talked to Leon, alone, and asked him to have a friendly match with this trainer and “discourage her from continuing the challenge.”

“Discourage her.” A phrase that he made clear meant “break her Pangoro’s fricking legs.”

Leon refused. He battled the challenger, beat her, gave her some encouragement, and back to Wyndon.

The next day, his mother called him in a panic. Hop had been attacked a wild Garbodor. (“Wild.” What a joke.) Luckily, Chairman Rose had been there at the right time to bring him to the hospital. Who knew what could have happened otherwise?

Hop was awake now and calling for his big brother, their mom had said. She knew being champion meant he was busy, but could Leon come right away?

It was the fastest he and Charizard had ever flown.

There he found Rose sitting by Hop’s bedside, a Gengar waiting for his prey.

“Perhaps you were right,” Rose said. “You do not seem to have the cunning necessary to protect the region. I will not ask you to do something like this again.”

He bent down and kissed Hop on the forehead. Leon’s stomach rolled.

Rose smiled. “In the future, however, I ask that you give my requests some more consideration.”

“Y-yes,” Leon said.

“Thank you. See you later, Champion.” Rose stood to leave. “Oh — I almost forgot. That challenger you battled yesterday? Unfortunately, she will be withdrawing from the competition. It seems her Pangoro was injured soon after her battle with you.”

“I — I see.”

And that was fine.

But now...

It’s been hours since the time he was supposed to meet Hop and Gloria for dinner. The Chairman won’t let him go, and the lift won’t work anyway if Rose doesn’t want it to.

Leon takes out Charizard’s ball, a contingency plan. If all else failed, he could call him and simply fly away. He could.

“I’ll take your request into consideration,” he says, interrupting. “But now I really have to go.”

“Yes. Your meeting with your brother, correct? You have no need to worry. I’ve sent some employees to take him in. They’ll protect him until we’re done here.”

Leon puts the pokeball away.

He wishes Rose would just make the threat explicit: hand over your Dynamax band and help me, or I’ll hurt your brother.

(Hurt. Not kill. Rose can’t let the champion’s little brother die right before the championship match, right? He hopes.)

But Rose seems to be oblivious to the idea of a threat at all. He repeats himself, over and over, as though Leon will come to his way of thinking if he only hears the logic enough.

He’s tired. He’s hungry. He’s not in the mood for debating Galar’s energy future.

(Did they let Hop have dinner, at least? They better have.)

He’s almost ready to just give Rose the band and come up with an excuse for its absence tomorrow, but then —

The ground shakes.

Somewhere below them, there’s a battle going on.

Leon finds himself hoping it’s Gloria. That maybe she realized something was wrong when neither Hop nor Leon showed up, and she’s coming to rescue them both. He imagines her, a knight in a grey-wool sweater, ascending the tower to rescue the kidnapped princes.

To his surprise, it’s Hop who steps out of the lift.

Gloria is right behind him, but Leon only notices her in an afterthought. There’s his baby brother, safe and sound and not being dragged in by Rose’s henchmen.

Hop is safe. Hop is safe. Hop is safe.

Leon wants to be relieved. But there’s still the Copperajah in the room.

He half-expects Rose to take them all prisoners, to keep them confined to the tower until he brings about his grand plan. If it comes to that, Charizard can take Hop somewhere safe, and then Leon and Gloria can fight their way out. Rose only has power in the shadows, where he can coerce and manipulate. If they can get outside, into the lights, the enchantment will break.

Leon gets ready --

But Rose lets them go.

He gives some comment about how adults can’t always see eye to eye. Leon snorts.

(I was just a kid. I didn’t know any better.)

On the lift down, he pulls Hop in for a hug and doesn’t let go.

[samsonet]

I can find my way home without you (the rightful king remix)

Leon always gives Chairman Rose what he wants.

Sometimes he has no fricking idea what that is, though.

Title from In the Heights' "Blackout."

~

Leon is ten when they meet for the first time.

Rose sees talent in this nobody kid from a nowhere town. Rose puts a hand on his shoulder, pats it seven times. Rose endorses him for the gym challenge.

Leon is sure that it is his own incredible talent that drew Rose’s attention, but he hears the gossip same as everyone. Rose likes playing philanthropist. Rose likes acting the fairy godfather to people in poverty. This airheaded purple-haired boy is just another in a long line of charity cases. There’s nothing special about him.

But they’re wrong, in Leon’s case. He really is that special, and he’s strong enough to prove it.

When he wins the Champion Cup, Leon waves to the chairman and takes some pride in the smile on Rose’s face.

*

When Leon is twelve, Rose gives him a present: a cape, dark velvet, the same color as the blouses Oleana wears. It’s trimmed with Wooloo wool, and the smell reminds him of Postwick and Hop.

Leon slings it over his scrawny shoulders and nearly stumbles under the weight. “I don’t know if I can wear this.”

But Rose only smiles. “You’ll grow into it.”

He doesn’t know what Rose is thinking.

He wears the cape to his next press event. Some reporters call it tacky, but the fandom eats it up. They call him King Leon and talk like he’s got the entire region in the palm of his hand. It’s a good feeling. Leon lets himself enjoy it.

(Later, he jokes about putting sponsor logos on the back of the cape. Then he goes and does it, because nobody can stop him.)

*

“Happy birthday,” Rose says. “You’re thirteen now, yes?”

Leon is not thirteen anymore, but he doesn’t know how to correct it without accidentally insulting the chairman.

Luckily for them both, Oleana knows everything. She murmurs: “He turned fourteen, sir.”

That makes Rose smile, his eyes shining. “Wonderful! Fourteen is a good number. Seven times two. It’s good luck. This will be a good year.”

Leon doesn’t understand Rose’s thing about sevens, but if it makes him feel better, that’s fine.

“Hammerlocke will be introducing their new gym leader next Tuesday. I would like you to be there to meet him. Can you find your way without me?”

“Definitely!”

(It turns out he can’t. He ends up calling Rose for help, and Oleana sends a taxi.)

*

By the time Leon turns sixteen, his legend as the “unbeatable champion” seems firmly written in Galar’s history.

He wins the champion cup -- again -- and Rose shakes his hand in front of the cameras.

“Where’d your challenger for this year go?” Leon asks, barely moving his lips. This is something he doesn’t want the press to overhear. (Probably should’ve waited, then, and asked later. Oh well.) “The kid you endorsed. I didn’t see her.”

“Oh, the girl?” (Surely Rose remembers her name, right?) “She went home after losing. I’d like it if you could train with her sometime, actually. She still does have a bright future, even if she won’t replace my favorite champion.”

I’m your only champion, Leon thinks.

Then, feeling a bit petty: and I won’t be so easily replaced.

“Anything for you.”

“Can you find your way to the Pokémon Center later tonight?”

“Of course.”

(A Macro Cosmos employee finds him later and has to bring him there personally.)

*

Contrary to the internet rumor mill, Leon does have a father. Dad is out of the region frequently, but he exists. He loves Leon and Hop. He’s a good dad.

It’s Leon’s seventeenth birthday, and he invites his father to the league party.

“Chairman Rose, this is my father. Dad, this is Chairman Rose.”

The men examine each other. What they’re looking for, Leon doesn’t know. (Should he suggest a battle? That’s always a good way to get to know someone. But then, Leon is always thinking about battling, and he knows some people find it annoying—)

His father blinks first, offering his hand to shake. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for my son.”

“He’s talented. All I did was clear the way.”

*

When Leon turns eighteen, Rose invites him to his private rooms in the Rose Tower.

The suite is glamorous, of course.The couch in the living room is immeasurably comfortable, probably immeasurably expensive, too. There are seven lights on the ceiling, shining blue like a foggy morning. Leon examines the pictures on the walls. Eight individual shots of the gym leaders. Himself, back when he was the newly-crowned child champion. Oleana. An older woman who is probably Rose’s mother. Two of Rose’s former endorsees.

The last one, Leon has no clue about. It shows a child with fluffy white hair. She -- he? -- is smiling, but not at the camera. No, that smile is aimed at the tiny pink Pokemon in their arms.

“He’s cute, isn’t he?”

Rose appears out of nowhere. He’s still in his suit, but he’s taken off the jacket and loosened the tie.

(Suddenly, the collar of the champion uniform feels a bit tight.)

Rose stands beside him, looking at the picture. “That’s Bede. He’s my ward, now; in a few years, I will be endorsing him for the challenge. He’s talented.”

“More talented than me?”

That earns him a laugh. “You don’t have to worry about him right now. Let’s talk about you. I have plans for you, you know. Even now.”

And, damn, if that doesn’t sound like something from an adult movie.

Leon has been wondering if this would ever happen. He’s an energetic teenager, and Rose is very attractive and does seem to be fond of him. They’re close, right? Rose has met his parents. Rose has held his baby brother. Rose isn’t going to hurt him.

He can’t figure out what Rose is thinking.

Whatever the chairman asks, Leon will do. It’s the least he can do to repay the debt, and if he doesn’t think too hard, the anxiety is almost the same as excitement —

Rose reaches up, pats Leon’s shoulder seven times. “Have you ever heard of the Darkest Day?”

Everything freezes.

All of a sudden, Leon realizes three things:

First, that he’s been taller than Rose for some time now.

Second, that for all the calm, steel-specialist persona, Rose is an incredibly anxious person.

Third, that they’re not actually going to have sex.

He’s not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

“I think I’ve heard that story,” he says. “The Fairy King, the Hero of Many Battles, right?”

“Yes. The ancient Hero fought the monster and saved Galar. You know I have been assisting Professor Magnolia with her research, yes? Well, I have come to a surprising conclusion.”

“Oh, yeah?” All Leon knows about Magnolia’s research is that Dynamaxing makes Pokemon bigger and the crowd loves to see a Charizard the size of a building. The more academic side has always bored him. (Sorry, Sonia.)

Rose walks to the window and pushes open the curtains. It’s dark outside. Below them, Galar shines like a jewel. “Do you know how much energy it takes to power a stadium, Leon?”

Bold of him to assume Leon knows anything, really.

But Rose doesn’t wait for an answer. “One thousand, five hundred megawatts. That’s enough electricity to power ten thousand homes. Heating, cooling, all the devices and appliances. And we use it for simple entertainment.”

Entertainment that Leon has dedicated his life to. “Are you getting tired of the league?”

“What? No, of course not. But lately it’s made me think… our energy supply isn’t infinite. In a thousand years, we won’t have any more resources. The day will come that Galar will go dark, forever. It gets closer every day, every minute. I confess I lie awake at night thinking about it.”

Rose raps his knuckles against the windowpane, knock knock knock knock knock knock knock.

“But I have a plan.”

“I’m all ears,” Leon says. If talking helps the chairman feel better about a disaster that will happen long after they’re both dead, so be it. He turns back to the pictures on the wall. (Piers’ looks more glam rock than his usual punk; did Rose specifically seek out this one to fit an aesthetic?)

“I intend to resurrect the Pokémon that brought about the Darkest Day and befriend it so it will provide for Galar’s future.”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

There’s a short silence. Then Rose says, “Champion, did you hear me?”

Mentally, Leon backtracks. Wait a second. That does not sound like a good plan. “You’re going to resurrect the thing that nearly destroyed Galar?”

“Yes. That is the surprising conclusion I mentioned earlier: that the Pokémon could be a source of infinite energy. I am still figuring out how to awaken it, but when I do, I will need a champion to fight for me and capture it. Can you do that, Leon?”

Leon studies him. Notes the fearful note in his eyes, the way his shoulders are tensed, and even the way he curls and uncurls his fingers.

“Of course I can. I’m your unbeatable champion, after all.”

And that was fine.

But then —

*

Leon is twenty-one when Rose decides to bring about the Darkest Day.

Leon told him to wait one more day, just one. He hopes Rose tried to wait, that the timing was only because he couldn’t bear to hold back any longer.

But he never knows what Rose is thinking.

(Of course, after the match it turns out there’s a new champion. Did Rose suspect that would happen? Or was he too worried about the far future to care about the near?)

Rose calls for help, and his champion rushes to answer.

They stare at each other. It only takes a moment, but it’s a moment too long while Eternatus rages above.

“I’m glad you came to help me,” Rose says.

I didn’t come for you. I’m here for Hammerlocke. I’m here for Galar.

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Leon replies.

“Can you find your way up without me?”

“Don’t mock me, Rose.”

(Going up he has no problems. Going down is another story.

Hop and Gloria are the ones who help him get back, afterwards. He doesn’t remember it, but apparently they half-supported, half-carried him into the lift. Those two. Always sharing their burdens.)

Leon will realize, later, that that’s the last time he actually saw Rose.

*

Gloria develops a habit of bouncing on one foot, then the other. One bounce, two bounce. One bounce, two bounce.

“Why do you hop like that?” Leon asks. “One champion to another.”

She blinks, like she’s never really thought about it. “Oh… I have to. Twice on each foot makes four. Four is good luck!”

“Good luck, huh?”

Leon touches his Dynamax band. It’s warm around his wrist.

He taps a finger against it, seven times.